Flowering - Part Nine
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I wait and watch until I catch a glimpse of Aiden helping Carter into the elevators. When the doors slide closed after them, I turn around and take a few unsteady steps away from the front desk. I lean heavily against one of the tall stone columns that line the interior of the lobby.
I press a hand over my racing heart, trying to catch my breath.
Holy shit. Holy shit, that was close, and I really need to calm down.
I give myself a second to get some air back into my lungs, to let my heartbeat steady out. When my eyes finally come back into focus, I glance back at the front desk, then freeze when I see Kate walking briskly along behind it. She’s headed over to Nora, who is just getting back from filing away the receipt she had Carter sign.
“You okay, Nora?” Kate asks, stopping by her side. “What’s with the face?”
“Ugh.” Nora turns to look at Kate, widens her eyes in extreme annoyance. “I just met Carter Sibley.”
Nora has her back to me, but I’m right in Kate’s eyeline. I hastily turn away as she glances up over Nora’s shoulder. I drop my gaze down to my phone again, pretending to be busy on it.
I know that Kate sees me standing here. Her eyes have already found my bright hair. And she’s definitely going to remember me from our interaction upstairs, when I failed to lie to her so spectacularly. She thinks that I’m Carter. Nora, on the other hand, knows that I’m not.
I hold my breath, forcing myself to keep my eyes on my phone.
“Shh,” Kate hisses, lowering her volume considerably. “Keep it quiet. Carter is still, like, right there.”
“What?” Nora doesn’t turn around, but I can tell from her whispered voice that she’s surprised. “I thought I saw security taking him back to his room.”
“No, he’s still here,” Kate whispers back. “Wait a sec.”
I hesitate, then make a decision. I pretend to wander off into the crowd, slipping my phone back into my pocket. Then I loop back and stop right on the other side of the column, straining hard to hear.
“Okay, think we’re good,” Kate says, though she keeps her voice quiet. “So? Did he sign the receipt?”
“Yes.” Nora makes a disgusted little sound. “He was a total asshole about it. He more or less threw his ID at my face when I told him that we would normally ask for it.”
“Are you serious?” Kate lets out a sharp scoff of outrage. “Brent did the same thing to me, basically!”
“Wow. Best friends think alike, huh? Also, Carter is trashed.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, that explains the bizarre fucking conversation I had with him upstairs.” Kate pauses, and I hear the sound of her manicured fingernails tapping against the counter. “Did you get an actual look at Carter’s ID, though? We really should have checked it for a purchase that size.”
“I didn’t scan it, but the picture matches his face, and I saw the name. That was definitely him.”
“Alright, good,” Kate answers, then lets out a regretful sigh. “Shame that he’s a total bastard. I do love me a fine slice of gingerbread.”
I press my fingers over my mouth, my eyes widening.
“Sorry?” Nora sounds confused, which is understandable, given that the real Carter is not a redhead. “You’ve lost me there, Kate.”
“Come on, you know what I mean,” Kate says, in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way.
“Um - do I?” Nora’s voice makes it sound like she’s thinking very hard. “Gingerbread…?”
“Oh, my god. Just - nevermind.” Kate falls silent for a moment, then reluctantly adds, “I guess we should have Brent sign the receipt, too, shouldn’t we?”
“Ah, yeah,” Nora answers slowly, and I can almost hear the wince in her voice. “I was gonna say - it’s going on his card, and technically, the policy is-”
“I know, I know. I’ll take care of it.” Kate sounds deeply unhappy at the prospect of having to talk to Ralph again. “Gimme the receipt. Anyone know where he is, right now?”
“He’s in the bar with his girlfriend, last I heard. Are you gonna ask for his ID, too? For the purchases?”
Kate lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Fuck, no! There was a whole thing with his passport, and - just - the guy you just talked to was definitely Carter, right?”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
“Well, that means the one we’ve got in the bar is definitely Brent. So, no, I’m not asking for his ID. You wanna try that, be my guest.”
“No, thank you,” Nora says firmly. “I’ve had enough of the Windsor party for one night. For one lifetime, in fact.”
“I have, too, believe me - oh - Joel! Hey!”
I steal a quick glance around the column to see Kate waving down a man in a neat black suit. He stops at the front desk, and she makes a pleading face at him, slides the receipt across the counter.
“Can you go to the bar and get Brent Windsor to sign off on this? He’s there with his girlfriend. Blonde guy in a private booth. Pretty please? I need a manager to do it, and I need that manager to not be me.”
Joel shrugs, reaches for the receipt. “Sounds like it’s me, then. You said a blonde guy in a private booth?”
Kate and Nora are both looking at Joel, so I seize the opportunity and step out from behind the column, out into the open.
My anxious heart thrums in my ears as I move. I wish desperately that this jacket had a hood I could pull up over my hair.
But somehow I manage to slip unseen into the crowd, unnoticed by Kate or Nora. Their eyes stay on Joel the whole time.
I set off across the lobby, into the anonymity of the bustling crowd. Moving slowly, half in a daze, I make my way towards the elevators. I call one down, then wait in silence, swaying slightly on the spot, until the ornate doors open.
I slip inside and scan Carter’s room key, hit the button for the penthouse.
I slump back against the gilded, gleaming walls as the doors slide shut before me.
~~~~
The elevator begins to glide upwards, and I run a trembling hand over my face. I’m reeling from everything that just happened, but I’m trying hard to pull my scattered thoughts back together. To think about what’s next.
The key. Aiden and I need to get the key to the safe.
I bite down hard on my lip, nervously twisting the ring around my finger. Ralph and Calla are counting on us to find that key, and it could be anywhere in Brent and Carter’s hotel room. It could also be somewhere else completely.
It suddenly occurs to me that there’s an obvious place I haven’t checked yet. The key was given to Brent for safekeeping, but he doesn’t exactly strike me as the poster boy for responsibility. There’s a very real chance he might have handed it off to Carter.
I feel through the pockets of Carter’s jacket, come up with nothing - then realize that there are two hidden, interior pockets. And I can feel something in one of them.
I take in a sharp, hopeful breath as I extract what Carter had in there.
“Come on,” I groan, looking down at my finds.
A bottle opener. A stack of singles, folded into a cash clip. A tiny Ziploc bag with some white powder inside. And a strip of three condoms.
I tip my head back in frustration, then start stuffing everything back into Carter’s pockets.
Before I can finish up, the elevator doors slide open on the private hallway that leads to the penthouse room. I forget what I’m doing immediately and go rushing out onto the expensive carpet.
I look around, then let out a relieved, trembling exhale. Aiden is there, waiting just outside of the hotel room door.
He’s got Carter slung over one shoulder, kept in place with one arm around the back of his knees. Carter is completely motionless, his arms limply dangling down Aiden’s back. He must not weigh enough to test Aiden’s strength, because Aiden doesn’t appear to be having any difficulty keeping him there. He’s holding Carter as easily and effortlessly as he might hold Luna.
“Oh, thank god,” Aiden rumbles, his blue eyes filling with relief as they land on me. “I was starting to worry about you, Linden.”
I just stand there staring at him for a second, my heart swimming with love.
Aiden nods at the hotel room door. “Want to let us in? Carter passed out again, and I don’t have a key to the r-”
Aiden breaks off in confusion, his eyes going to the strip of condoms in my hand.
“What-?” he begins, then stops again when I rush to him and lean up to place a long, enthusiastic kiss on his lips.
“Mmm - hi.” He huffs out a soft laugh against my mouth. “What’s going on?”
“Thank you for rescuing me, down there.” I look up at him affectionately, all my love and admiration showing in my eyes. “The glowing jacket? That was a nice bit of on-the-fly magic, Heliomancer. Sexy of you.”
Aiden shrugs, like it was no big deal. But I see the small smile that rises on his face at my words.
“Took you a while to get up here,” he murmurs, pressing his nose into mine. “You alright?”
“Yeah, I’m fine!” I let go of Aiden, then fall back onto my feet. “I had to kiss both Luis and Isaac to get out of the bar, though.”
Aiden instantly chokes out a startled, sputtering sound, his eyes wide with indignation.
“I’ll explain later!” I push a finger over his lips, then feel around in my pockets for the room key. “Let’s get Carter inside, first.”
“Fine, yeah, alright,” Aiden grumbles, then points at the handful of condoms I’m holding. "But those better have nothing to do with the explanation.”
“Oh - no, they’re unrelated!” I stuff them back into the jacket pocket, then scan the key to let us into the hotel room. “They were in Carter’s jacket pocket. I thought he might have the safe key in there, but no luck. Just supplies for his night out. Condoms and coke.”
“This guy sure knows how to treat his fiancée.” Aiden strides into the hotel room, not bothering to be all that gentle with Carter. “Well, sucks that there wasn’t anything helpful in there. Unless - how much coke is left? Should we each do a bump real quick, to help us stay focused? Focus bumps?”
“Stop it,” I laugh, then stop and tip my head back, pressing my palms to my eyes. “How did my life come to this? Hell Cubes and Focus Bumps? I ask you.”
Aiden snickers at me, and I shake my head as I cross to the bathroom to lose the coke. If we do get arrested tonight, I’d prefer not to have an illegal substance charge slapped on top of everything else.
Oh, my god. It’s just dawned on me that I’ve had this on me the whole fucking time. I’m real lucky that we haven’t been caught.
“Okay, note to self for future heists,” I murmur to myself, wide-eyed at the realization. “Always check the pockets of borrowed jackets.”
“What was that?” Aiden calls.
“Shhh, Aiden!” I sputter, rushing to rejoin him in the living room. “Keep it down, babe - what if Carter wakes up again?”
Aiden leads the way into the bedroom and roughly drops Carter back onto the bed. He flops bonelessly onto his side, doesn’t move. Lets out a heavy, muffled snore into the bedding.
“Yeah, I don’t think he will,” Aiden tells me. “I don’t even get how he did, the first time.”
I open my mouth to answer, then stop, staring down at the bed.
“Oh, my god.” I reach out and pluck Carter’s phone from the sheets, the realization breaking over me. “He was passed out with his head on his phone, when we left him here! The front desk called him, so - his phone probably vibrated right against his fucking face.”
“Well, that’s a solvable problem.” Aiden takes Carter’s phone from me, holds down the power button until it turns off, and sets it down on the night table. “Done.”
“Okay. Cool.”
“And you got rid of the coke, right?”
“Yep, it’s gone. Just got the condoms, now.”
“Okay.” Aiden tosses his hair out of his face, then straightens out his jacket where Carter’s unconscious body had crumpled it up. “Great.”
There’s a short silence. Aiden and I stare at each other, then both let out a ragged, helpless laugh.
“Oh, my god,” I groan, pushing a hand through my hair. “This has been - just - what the fuck kind of weirdness are we gonna get bushwhacked with, next? Because, so far-”
“Yeah, I know.” Aiden shakes his head in disbelief. “Things definitely run smoother when Kasey or Calla makes the plan ahead of time. I mean - they don't exactly go smooth, but they’re more - organized.”
“Yeah,” I agree, rubbing my temples. “I’m a big advocate for organized crime, personally.”
Aiden lets out another helpless laugh, and we both take a second to pull ourselves together, to get back in line.
“What happened downstairs?” Aiden asks, serious again.
“Oh, god. A lot.”
I fill Aiden in on everything he missed. He listens in close, attentive silence the whole time, except for the part about my having to kiss Luis and Isaac on the cheek. At that part, his eyebrows arch all the way up, and he clearly has to fight down a laugh.
“Dumbass,” he snickers, unable to stop himself, and I groan deeply, my cheeks burning.
When I get to the end, Aiden falls silent, thinking. I wrap my arms around his waist, using every spare second I have to hold him.
“You know what?” Aiden says thoughtfully, drawing back to look down at me. “We’re doing better than we thought, despite all the - everything.”
I take a moment to actually process everything that happened downstairs, and realize that Aiden is right.
Carter himself just signed off on all the purchases at the lobby shops. Kate now firmly believes that I’m him, and that Ralph is Brent. Ralph and Calla are supposed to interact with all of the managers, convince them that they’re Brent and his girlfriend. Now a new manager has been sent their way, and he’ll believe it’s them already, because Kate told him so.
I take a deep breath, in disbelief all over again. Are we actually doing okay?
I had been on the verge of a panic meltdown in the lobby, but suddenly I’m feeling good. Relieved to have Aiden in my arms. Geed up by the realization that we’re hanging in there and fighting our way forward, despite all the chaos.
Adrenaline races through my veins at the thought that we might actually pull this off.
I release Aiden and take a step back, bouncing a little on my toes. “Let’s do this, right?”
Aiden huffs out a laugh, ruffles my hair.
“Yeah,” he rumbles. “Let’s find the key.”
We both look around at the vast, trashed hotel room.
“Right,” I say slowly. “The key.”
~~~~
We have looked everywhere.
Aiden and I have gone through the living room, both bedrooms, the kitchen, and the closets. We went through Brent and Carter’s suitcases, their carry-on bags. We checked their pockets. Aiden uncurled Brent’s fist to make sure that he wasn’t just holding it. Nothing.
I texted Ralph and asked him to check if there was anything in the pockets of Brent’s jacket. He texted me that he’d done that as soon as he put the jacket on, obviously, and the key isn’t in there.
“You’re checking the shower?” I ask helplessly, watching Aiden through the wall of clear glass that separates it off from the rest of the bathroom. “Seriously?”
“You have any other ideas, at this point?” Aiden looks over at me, his blue eyes increasingly alarmed. “Shit, Jamie, what if we can’t fucking find it?”
I press my palms to my eyes, forcing myself to take a deep breath. The more time that goes by, the more likely it is that the State AG shows up before we can get away. I can practically hear the clock ticking down in my head.
But Aiden has been calm for me this whole time, so I can be calm for him, now.
I just need to think, we just need a plan… god, I wish that Kasey was here, and Will, too -
My eyes fly open as I land on an idea.
“Oh-” I straighten up, then rush to join Aiden in the gigantic, flat-floored shower. “Aiden - you said that doing something with magic is easier for you once you’ve already done it before, right?”
He nods at me, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“Okay, well - you summoned Will’s watch, before,” I tell him urgently. “Remember, when we time-traveled? The watch was in your office at City Hall, and you summoned it into the Corvette.”
Aiden pauses, his eyes widening as he realizes what I’m getting at.
“You think I should - try to summon the safe key?” He nibbles his lip, blue eyes filled with uncertainty. “But I haven’t even seen it. I don’t know what it looks like.”
“You didn’t know what Will’s watch looked like when you summoned it out of the river,” I point out. “You were just reaching out, thinking of Will. Right?”
Aiden nods slowly, runs an anxious hand over his jaw. “That’s… true. Yeah.”
“You can do it, Sugar Maple.” I take his hands in mine, then gaze right into his eyes, so he can see how much I mean it. “You’re so much better with your magic now. You’ve come so far, you know that.”
Aiden thinks about it for another moment, then lets out a slow, nervous exhale.
“Okay, I - I guess I’ll try.” He folds his huge hands gently around mine. “Mostly because we’re running out of time, and I can’t think of any other ideas.”
“You’ve got this,” I tell him earnestly, closing my eyes. “I’m right here with you.”
Aiden takes a deep breath, then opens the connection.
His energy spills through our intertwined hands, flooding me. It warms me through and through, like a perfect, serene sunbath. The feeling makes my toes curl, even right now, in this situation.
The rush of it climbs and climbs, and I hold my breath. Then Aiden draws on it gently, pulls it back, like he’s slowly winding it around his palm.
I bite down on a smile as I feel my Heliomancer carefully working his magic.
Aiden lets go of one of my hands. I open my eyes to find him holding his palm out, like he’s waiting for something to land on it.
There’s a silence. Nothing happens.
Aiden’s eyes blink open, shimmering with white-blue magic. He looks down at his empty hand, then lets out a deep, defeated sigh, pushing his fingers through his hair.
“Fuck,” he says, his broad shoulders drooping. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry!” I hastily take Aiden’s face in my hands, then lean up to press a kiss onto his jaw. “Aiden, honestly, you never have to be sorry for-”
A sudden, muffled crash comes from the living room, cutting me off.
Aiden and I both freeze. I look up at Aiden, who stares down at me.
Then something glinting and tiny zips through the open door of the bathroom. It curves towards us at top speed, then smashes directly through the glass wall of the shower. Punches a hole right through it.
I gasp, and Aiden automatically flings his arm up.
A shining shield of Heliomancer heat and light bursts into being before us. The explosion of glittering glass shards bounces off of it harmlessly, tumbles to the tile floor.
I look down at the pile of shattered glass, half in shock. It distantly occurs to me that Brent’s credit card has now taken separate, brutal hits from me, Ralph, Calla, and Aiden. And the tab keeps climbing.
The little object responsible for the latest destruction glances off of the Heliomancer shield, then comes back and presses against it, like it’s trying to fight its way through to Aiden.
Aiden stares at it in blank shock for a second, then releases the heat and light barrier.
The safe key soars forward to gently deposit itself into his waiting hand.
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